Eagleheart

Stratovarius developed a very bad habit, starting on “Infinite”, of recording superior songs and then dropping them from the finalized version of their major releases. While the weaker songs on “Elements Pt.1” were nowhere near as grating as the ones on the one before it, it makes you wonder what seeped its way into Timo Tolkki’s brain that he would put an uninspired half-ballad like “Papillion” on the album this single pre-empted but left “Run Away” off or had it as a bonus track, let alone the extremely boring all-acoustic piece of garbage “A Drop in the Ocean”, which is only slightly less hokey than “Celestial Dream”.

The featured track “Eagleheart” is a somewhat less interesting rehash of the formula of “Hunting High and Low”. It features a somewhat keyboard heavy principle theme and a lot more processed guitar effects, but ultimately it’s an extremely formulaic upper mid-tempo rocker that wouldn’t be unheard of showing up on a mid-80s Gary Moore or Thin Lizzy album. It’s a bit more watered down guitar wise than the amazing rockers heard on “Episode” and “Visions”, but it gets the job done.

The first b-side “Run Away” is the highlight of the single, and would have been a stand out track on the full length if it had actually been included. It’s slightly slower than the title track, but it follows a similar formula, but with a lot more guitar heaviness and intrigue. The chorus is pretty repetitive and listens like a slower version of “Learning to Fly”, which was probably the reason why it was left off, but as a whole this listens like one of the better moments on the “Destiny” LP.

The demo song is basically a slightly faster and a little more drum heavy version of the title track, but with completely different lyrics which sound extremely awkward. It does shed some light on the process of the creation of the song and it beats listening to Koltipelto just hum the melody, but the lyrics of the prototype version here almost sound unrelated to the title of the song. Particularly during the chorus, the lyrics seem to be wondering aimlessly in search of an escape from the curse of being in broken English.

If nothing, this underscores Timo Tolkki’s growing detachment with the power metal world, which is sad considering that he and the others here all but created the melodic variant that it still quite popular in much of Europe. Unless you’re able to track down the limited edition 2CD version of “Elements Pt. 1”, this would be worth tracking down for the extra song. It’s the closest you’ll get to pre-Infinite Stratovarius after the turn of the millennium.